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When Cortney Lane Stell was the gallery director at the Rocky Mountain College of Art and Design in the early 2000s, her days looked exactly how you’d expect: hanging paintings on white walls in a cavernous space where footsteps echoed too loudly. “I love those galleries because you can contemplate art without distraction,” Stell says, “but white cubes don’t let you view that art within context.”
In 2015, Stell became the founding executive director of Black Cube, a nonprofit museum now known for showcasing contemporary works at unconventional venues. It’s installed pieces in bus terminals, at Red Rocks Amphitheatre, and in the middle of the San Luis Valley. “When you place art in unique places, it encourages people to be more curious,” Stell says.
This month, Black Cube’s 10th anniversary show—What We Hold On To (September 5 to December 12)—will take over the museum’s headquarters in Englewood. Celebrating this milestone at home might seem like a departure for the nomadic organization, but the exhibition’s themes of storage, grief, trauma, and hoarding just happen to fit perfectly in the space, a former warehouse. That means attendees can expect to see what the nonprofit is best at: embedding art where it makes the most impact.
We look back at three of the museum’s installations where that intention was on full display.
3 of the Best Black Cube Art Exhibits
“Monument for the 308”
In late 2019, visitors to Denver Public Library’s central branch were greeted by a 24-foot-tall skeleton—but it wasn’t a T. rex. German artist Andreas Greiner 3D-printed huge plastic bones to create a giant Ross 308 broiler chicken, a type of poultry bred specifically for human consumption. The piece (picture above) symbolized one of the most abundant animals of our current geologic era, just as dinosaurs were in the Mesozoic.
“Community Forms”
At first glance, Colorado artist Matt Barton’s 2021 sculptural installation in Globeville might look like any other skatepark. But it doesn’t solely serve as a space to practice your ollies: Composed of concrete and formed earth, “Community Forms” uses curved lines to direct stormwater runoff toward plants and the nearby South Platte River.
“SHARE”
The gleaming lettering in this bronze text installation may look familiar. Mexico City–based artist Anuar Maauad borrowed the glitzy font from Trump Tower to quote a line from Marvin Gaye’s “I Want You.” The softness of the lyrics contrasts with the strongman ethos the Trump emblem has come to represent. One hundred of the works were stationed around the Denver metro in 2019; a dozen remain in public view, glinting on buildings such as the Sie FilmCenter and Museo de las Americas.
